Motivation

Pre-reading model

Draw a schema (using PmGraphViz or another solution) of the situation of the area in the studied domain before having read the book.

Reading

1 The myth of epiphany

theological explanation for epiphany moments rather than hard work

"The Greeks were so committed to ideas as supernatural forces that they created an entire group of goddesses, not one but nine, to represent creative power. These nine goddesses, or muses, were the recipients of prayers from writers, engineers, and musicians."

"Any seemingly grand idea can be divided into an infinite series of smaller, previously known ideas."

"unlike a puzzle, the universe of ideas can be combined in an infinite number of ways, so part of the challenge of innovation is coming up with the problem to solve, not just its solution. The pieces used to innovate one day can be reused and reapplied to innovate again, only to solve a different problem."

quoting Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi's book, Creativity: Flow and the Psychology of Discovery and Invention

"Some workaholic innovators tweak this [breaks with which the change of activity pays of] by working on multiple projects at the same time, effectively using work on one project as a break from the other."

"Edison, Darwin, da Vinci, Michelangelo, and van Gogh all regularly switched between different projects, occasionally in different fields, possibly accelerating an exchange of ideas and seeding their minds for new insights."

Self-knowledge, Be intense but step back, Grow to size, Honor luck and the past

4 People love new ideas

quoting Paul C. Lauterbur "you can write the entire history of science in the last 50 years in terms of papers rejected by Science or Nature."

"We confuse truly new ideas with good ideas that have already been proven, which just happen to be new to us."

"[Innovation] asks for faith in something unknown over something known to be safe, or even pleasant."

quoting Niccolo Machiavelli

quoting Howard Aiken "Don't worry about people stealing an idea. If it's original, you will have to ram it down their throats."

"the entrepreneur, whether she's wealthy or happy living on ramen noodles, must eventually convince one group of people—customers—of the merit of her ideas. And if she doesn't have enough money to support her new ideas, or her family refuses to eat canned chili for the third straight month, she'll need to convince a second group—investors." as discussed with Sylvain on time vs. available resources

five factors that define how quickly innovations spread by Everett Rogers

"Wise innovators—driven by passion more than ego—initiate partnerships, collaborations, and humble studies of the past, raising their odds against the timeless challenges of innovation."

6 Good ideas are hard to find

"The difference between creatives and others is more attitude and experience than nature."

"Our unique advantage on this planet is the inventive capacity of our minds."

"We reward conformance of mind, not independent thought, in our systems—from school to college to the workplace to the home—yet we wonder why so few are willing to take creative risks."

cf Understanding Power by Noam Chomsky, 2002, page236 : "if he got a C in a course, nobody cared, but if he went to school three minutes late he was sent to the principal's office -and that generalized. He realized that what it meant is, what's valued here is the ability to work on an assembly line, even if it's an intellectual assembly line"

"Too much idealism, and the work never ships—not enough, and little change is brought to the world."

"The difference between success and failure is most often relentlessness, not talent or charisma (though those help). "

Steve Jobs "I'm convinced that about half of what separates the successful entrepreneurs from the non-successful ones is pure perseverance. Persuasion is a skill; if sufficiently motivated, anyone can improve."

Alain Connes also mentioned perseverance as maybe the most important skill for a young mathematician

"the most successful innovations are not the most valuable or the best ideas, but the ones that appear on the sweet spot between what's good from the expert's perspective, and what can be easily adopted, given the uncertainties of all the secondary factors combined. "

9 Problems and solutions

"Discovering problems actually requires just as much creativity as discovering solutions."

Palm Pilot prototyping by Hawkins and his actual faked usage during real meetings

"He carried it around with him to all his meetings, pretending to use it as if it were the finished product."

"In his words, <<An essential part of innovation is to envision the new product or service. You have to use it and experience it before it is designed and built.>>"

"while serendipity has a starring role in innovation, it's what people do with the chance encounter that matters, and not the chance discovery itself."

10 Innovation is always good

"This is an essential paradox of innovation: no one knows, not even the inventors, how their creations will impact the world until they are used."

"quote from Don Norman I recently came across in an interview with Peter Merholz. Norman advises designers: <<Do not solve the problem that’s asked of you. It’s almost always the wrong problem. Almost always when somebody comes to you with a problem, they’re really telling you the symptoms and the first and the most difficult part of design is to figure out what is really needed to get to the root of the issue and solve the correct problem.>>”

Synthesis

So in the end, it was about X and was based on Y.

Critics

Point A, B and C are debatable because of e, f and j.

Vocabulary

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new_word
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Post-reading model

Draw a schema (using PmGraphViz or another solution) of the situation of the area in the studied domain after having read the book. Link it to the pre-reading model and align the two to help easy comparison.

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